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      Family of four-year-old who would ‘die within days’ fighting deportation from US to Mexico

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      The family of a four-year-old girl who is receiving life-saving treatment in the United States are fighting against deportation, as her medical team warns she will likely die “within days” if forced to return to Mexico.Deysi Vargas, her husband and their daughter – whom lawyers identified by the pseudonym Sofia – came to the US in 2023, receiving permission to enter the US on humanitarian grounds to seek medical care. Sofia suffers from short bowel syndrome, requiring specialized care that includes IV treatments for 14 hours a day. She has seen significant improvement since arriving in the US and obtaining care at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, her mother said.But in April, Donald Trump’s administration terminated the family’s legal status and ordered them to self-deport, which would have grave consequences for Sofia.“Sofia’s doctors have been clear she will die within days,” Gina Amato, the directing attorney of Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, which is representing the family. “Deporting this family under these conditions is not only unlawful – it constitutes a moral failure that violates the basic tents of humanity and decency.”View image in fullscreenThe family’s attorney has sought to have the administration reverse its decision and restore humanitarian parole, a temporary status granted to people on urgent humanitarian grounds, citing Sofia’s dire need for care. The family has not received a response.The legal status the family previously received saved Sofia’s life, her mother said at a press conference on Wednesday, as her curly-haired daughter sat nearby, feet dangling off a chair while she played with stickers. Sofia was born with her condition and, while in Mexico, was hospitalized constantly and did not improve, Vargas said.“Now with the help she’s received in the United States, my daughter has an opportunity to get out of the hospital, know the world and live like a normal girl of four years,” she said through a translator.Sofia currently receives nutrition intravenously as well as through a feeding tube, Amato said, but that treatment is not available abroad because the equipment cannot be taken outside the US. While her condition has significantly improved, Sofia cannot yet survive without the treatment she receives from the hospital, her mother said.Humanitarian parole was made for people like Vargas and Sofia, the family’s lawyer, Rebecca Brown, said, adding that she came to the US legally – applying to enter the country and waiting until her application was approved before entering. If the government conducted an individualized assessment, as required by law, they would see the need for Sofia to remain in the US, Brown said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAmato argued the case was a symbol of “the recklessness of this administration’s deportation policies”.“To suddenly yank away that welcome mat, take away Sofia’s lifesaving care and quite literally risk her life is a cruel betrayal of our nation’s values and an affront to our shared humanity,” Amato said, adding that the government’s policies are endangering many immigrants seeking refuge. “These are people coming to us for protection and instead we’re sending them to die.” More

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      Trump administration orders US embassies to stop student visa interviews

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      The Trump administration has ordered US embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants.A Tuesday state department cable instructs consular sections to pause adding “any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued” within days.The directive, first reported by Politico and now confirmed by the Guardian, could severely delay visa processing and hurt universities – many of which Donald Trump accuses of having far-left ideologies – that rely heavily on foreign students for revenue.“The department is conducting a review of existing operations and processes for screening and vetting of student and exchange visitor visa applicants,” the cable reads. Officials plan to issue guidance on “expanded social media vetting for all such applicants”.The freeze is a further escalation from current screening measures, which have primarily targeted students who participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests. Since March, consular officers have been required to conduct mandatory social media reviews looking for evidence of support for “terrorist activity or a terrorist organization” which could be as broad as showing support for the Palestinian cause, according to a cable obtained by the Guardian at the time. That directive required officers to take screenshots of “potentially derogatory” content for permanent records, even if posts were later deleted.The new expansion would apply social media vetting to all student visa applicants, not just those flagged for activism. Under the screening process, consular officers would examine applicants’ posts, shares, and comments across platforms such as Instagram, X, and TikTok for content they deem to be threatening to national security, which has since been tied in to the Trump administration’s stance on combating antisemitism.Rubio told senators last week that his department has revoked visas numbering “probably in the thousands at this point”, up from more than 300 reported in March. “I don’t know the latest count, but we probably have more to do,” he said.There are more than one million foreign students in the United States, contributing nearly $43.8bn to the US economy and supporting more than 378,000 jobs in 2023 to 2024, according to NAFSA. The visa freeze threatens to compound existing challenges facing higher education institutions already experiencing declining international enrollment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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      US police officer resigns after wrongfully arresting undocumented teen

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      A Georgia police officer resigned from his job on Friday after erroneously pulling over a teenager, causing her to spend more than two weeks in a federal immigration jail, and leaving her facing deportation.The officer, Leslie O’Neal, was employed at the police department in Dalton, a small city more than an hour north of Atlanta.His arrest of college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal not only led to a domino effect that could lead to her deportation – it also engendered anger and criticism, especially given the circumstances of her immigration-related detention.Though Dalton’s municipal government did not provide any information about why O’Neal resigned, his wife posted his resignation letter on Facebook, which said he believed the local police department did not adequately defend him.“The department’s silence in the face of widespread defamation has not only made my position personally untenable but has also created an environment where I can no longer effectively carry out my duties within the city of Dalton without fear of further backlash from the community,” O’Neal wrote in the letter.On 5 May, O’Neal pulled Arias-Cristobal over in Dalton. The officer accused her of improperly making a false turn – but those charges were later dropped after the police force admitted to mistaking her car for another.The damage, though, was done by the time Arias-Cristobal’s charges were dismissed. The 19-year-old – who is undocumented and was driving with a Mexican license – was brought to the US from Mexico in 2007, when she was just four.The timing of her having been taken to the US barely missed the deadline for her to qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a program initiated during Barack Obama’s presidency that provided children in her situation some protections from deportation.After O’Neal arrested her, local authorities contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency that detains and deports immigrants. Ice agents then transferred her to an immigration jail in the state.“I cannot go to jail,” Arias-Cristobal said during the arrest, according to dash-cam footage. “I have my finals next week. My family depends on this.”Arias-Cristobal’s plight captured national attention, with many supporting her and calling for her release. Others – including the far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – agitated for Arias-Cristobal to be deported.“In Mexico, today, there’s over 1.6 million United States of America citizens, living and thriving in Mexico, and I’m sure she and her family will be able to do the same,” Greene said during an interview with Tennessee’s Local 3 News. “But it’s important for our nation, for our sovereignty, for us to uphold the law. And this is what we have to do.”The White House’s attempts to engage in “mass deportations” during Donald Trump’s second presidency has led to an increase in arrests throughout the country. Immigration enforcement operations have been aided by local jurisdictions that partner with Ice, under what are known as 287(g) contracts. These contracts deputize local officials to carry out immigration enforcement arrests, collaborating closely with Ice.The Whitfield county sheriff’s office, which runs the local jail for people arrested in Dalton, has a 287(g) contract with Ice.Additionally, a law signed last year by Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, requires local law enforcement, in the entire state, to apply to enter into 287(g) contracts with Ice. Immigration advocacy organizations have called that law “disastrous”.The Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, for instance, said it would lead to “racial profiling, terrorize immigrant communities and waste local resources”.Arias-Cristobal’s father, José Arias-Tovar, had also been detained by Ice weeks earlier after another traffic stop for speeding. He bonded out of Ice detention on 16 May. Five days later, Arias-Cristobal paid a $1,500 bond, leading to her release. She was home with her family by Thursday evening.“We’re going to keep working on her case to try to keep her here permanently,” Arias-Cristobal’s attorney, Dustin Baxter, told local TV station WSB-TV.Arias-Cristobal’s arrest has prompted some to rally for her release, whether in person or online. Her advocates have criticized Ice and the local police department for how they have handled her case.A GoFundMe campaign launched for her legal defense has raised more than $90,000.The jail where Arias-Cristobal was detained before she bonded out is known as the Stewart detention center. It is a run privately in Lumpkin, Georgia, by CoreCivic under a contract with Ice and for years has been accused of violating rights and maintaining horrific conditions. More

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      US judge orders Trump administration to return wrongly deported gay man

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      A federal judge ordered the Trump administration late Friday night to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man it deported to Mexico, in spite of his fears of being harmed there, and who has since been returned to Guatemala.The man, who is gay, had applied for asylum in the US last year after he was attacked twice in homophobic acts of violence in Guatemala. He was protected from being returned to his home country under a US immigration judge’s order at the time, but the Trump administration put him on a bus and sent him to Mexico instead.The US district judge Brian Murphy found the man’s deportation likely “lacked any semblance of due process”. In a declaration to the court, the man, identified by his initials OCG in legal filings, said that since he was returned to Guatemala two months ago, “I have been living in hiding, in constant panic and constant fear”.An earlier court proceeding determined that OCG risked persecution or torture if returned to Guatemala, but he also feared returning to Mexico. He presented evidence of being raped and held for ransom there while seeking asylum in the US.“No one has ever suggested that OCG poses any sort of security threat,” Murphy wrote in his order. “In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped.”Murphy’s order adds to a string of findings by federal courts against recent Trump administration deportations.Last week, Murphy, a Biden appointee, found that the Trump administration had violated an order he issued barring government officials from deporting people to countries not their own without first giving them sufficient time to object.In a hearing, the homeland security department said that seven immigrants had been deported Tuesday on a flight to a third country, but they refused to say where the men were going. It was later revealed that the men were told they were being sent to South Sudan.In that case, Murphy said that the government had given the seven men little more than 24 hours’ notice that they were being removed from the US, which he called “plainly insufficient”, and could result in a finding of criminal contempt.Other cases that have been spotlighted for rapid deportations include that of Kilmar Ábrego García, who was sent to El Salvador. The US supreme court ordered the government to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, but the White House has said it is not within its power to do so.That case sparked a legal joust over the supreme court’s practicable meaning of “facilitate”.In his ruling, Murphy noted the dispute over the use of the verb, saying that returning OCG to the US is not that complicated.“The Court notes that ‘facilitate’ in this context should carry less baggage than in several other notable cases,” he wrote. “OCG is not held by any foreign government. Defendants have declined to make any argument that facilitating his return would be costly, burdensome, or otherwise impede the government’s objectives.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      US citizen detained by immigration officials who dismissed his Real ID as fake

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      Authorities wrestled a US-born citizen to the ground, cuffed him and dismissed his so-called Real ID as “fake” during an arrest operation targeting undocumented people on Wednesday under the direction of the Trump administration, according to a viral video and reporting by Telemundo.Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, was at his construction job in Foley, Alabama, when officials arrived to arrest workers there. Garcia Venegas – who was born in Florida to Mexican parents – began filming the arrests with his mobile phone before officials reportedly knocked the device out of his hand and tried to arrest him as well.Video of the arrest shows three officials wrestling him to the ground, while he yells: “I’m a citizen!”According to an interview with the Spanish-language US news outlet Telemundo, officials took out his wallet, removed his ID – which complies with higher federal security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses as well as identification – and told him that it was fake.“They cuffed me,” he said. “They put the cuffs on quite hard.”Four people at the job site were arrested, including Garcia Venegas’s brother, who is undocumented.Officials removed the cuffs from Garcia Venegas hours later – after he gave them his social security number, verifying his US citizenship.“I feel really sad, honestly, and I feel a bit nervous for everything that’s happening,” said Garcia Venegas, referring to the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration-related crackdown.His cousin, also a US citizen, told Telemundo they both went through the process of acquiring the Real ID, undergoing “the protocols the administration is asking for”.“I feel sad because, even though we were born here, that doesn’t matter any more,” the cousin said. She added: “To have our skin color has, apparently, become a crime. And it has become a crime deserving of this type of treatment – as if we were real criminals.”In a statement to NBC News, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused Garcia Venegas of having “interfered” with the arrest during the operation.“Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including US citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest,” the DHS’s statement to NBC said.It is unclear whether the officials who cuffed Garcia Venegas were local officials, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents or other members of federal law enforcement.Since Trump came into office, various federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and others, have been tasked with carrying out immigration enforcement operations. Some local police and sheriff’s departments have also been deputized to carry out federal immigration arrests.As the White House attempts to carry out a promise of “mass deportations” that vaulted Donald Trump to victory in November’s presidential election, a number of US citizens have been caught up in its dragnet.Some, such as Garcia Venegas, have been detained by officials, then released. But others, including children, have been deported.Although rare, the deportation of US citizens has also happened during prior administrations. More

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      Record number of Americans seeking UK residency, says Home Office

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      During the 12 months leading up to March, more than 6,000 US citizens have applied to either become British subjects or to live and work in the country indefinitely – the highest number since comparable records began in 2004, according to data released on Thursday by the UK’s Home Office.Over the period, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship – with more than 1,900 of the applications received between January and March, most of which has been during the beginning of Donald Trump’s second US presidency.The surge in applications at the start of 2025 made that the highest number for any quarter on record.The figures come as British authorities under a Labour government are trying to reduce immigration to the UK, with Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, vowing to take “back control of our borders” and warning that uncontrolled immigration could result in the country “becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together”.UK figures show net migration dropped by almost half in 2024 – to 431,000 – compared with 2023.The surge in US applications for UK residency comes as American immigration lawyers say they are receiving an increasing number of inquiries. Some are pointing to the polarized political climate in the Trump-led country, which itself is mounting an aggressive immigration-related crackdown.Muhunthan Paramesvaran, an immigration lawyer at Wilsons Solicitors in London, told the New York Times that inquiries had risen “in the immediate aftermath of the election and the various pronouncements that were made”.“There’s definitely been an uptick in inquiries from US nationals,” Paramesvaran told the outlet. “People who were already here may have been thinking: ‘I want the option of dual citizenship in the event that I don’t want to go back to the US.’”Zeena Luchowa, a partner at Laura Devine Immigration, which specializes in US migration to the UK, was more explicit in pointing to the “political landscape” amid Trump’s government. Luchowa told the outlet that the rise was not limited to US nationals – but also other nationalities living there.“The queries we’re seeing are not necessarily about British citizenship – it’s more about seeking to relocate,” Luchowa said to the Times.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, the increase in US applications to the UK may not necessarily reflect political conditions in either country. Of the 5,521 settlement applications from US citizens last year, most were from people who were eligible via spousal or family links.Paramesvaran said such applications were likely to climb because the UK government had extended the qualification period from five years to 10 before they could apply for settlement. But Labour government politicians have hinted that some applicants may be able to skirt those requirements.That echoes one aspect of Trump’s thinking in the US, where he has floated the idea of an immigration “gold card” – in essence, an extension of the EB-5 program that extends green cards to foreign investors and their families.The UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told parliament earlier in May that “there will be provisions to qualify more swiftly that take account of the contribution people have made” and said the British government “will introduce new, higher language requirements” because “the ability to speak English is integral to everyone’s ability to contribute and integrate”. More

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      Trump administration trying to dismiss MS-13 leader’s charges to deport him

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      Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to dismiss criminal charges against a top MS-13 leader in order to deport him to El Salvador, according to newly unsealed court records – igniting accusations from critics and the defendant’s legal team that the US president is trying to do a favor for his Salvadorian counterpart, who struck a deal with the gang in 2019.According to justice department records, the MS-13 figure in question, Vladimir Antonio Arevalo-Chavez, has intimate knowledge of that secretive pact, which – before eventually falling apart – involved Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s government ceding money and territory to the gang, who in return promised to reduce violence from its side and provide Bukele’s party with electoral support.Attempts by the Trump administration to expel Arevalo-Chavez are part of its own deal with Bukele to allow for the US to incarcerate immigrants in a maximum security Salvadoran prison. CNN reported in April that Bukele’s government had specifically asked for nine top MS-13 leaders to be brought back to El Salvador from the US.Critics of Trump who are defending Arevalo-Chavez’s rights see the move to deport him as a way to prevent him from testifying in a US court, or becoming a federal government cooperator, to limit disclosures about Bukele’s past ties to the gang as much as possible.Arevalo-Chavez is a member of the “Ranfla Nacional”, which is considered to be a directors’ board of sorts for the MS-13 gang. Federal charges pending against him in New York include racketeering, terrorism and conspiring to commit narco-terrorism.A filing from the US justice department – dated 1 April but not unsealed until Thursday – said federal prosecutors want to dismiss charges against Arevalo-Chavez for “sensitive and important foreign policy considerations”.Prosecutors added that “geopolitical and national security concerns of the United States” and said permitting “the prosecution of the defendant to proceed in the first instance in El Salvador” was also a factor.Arevalo-Chavez is still in the US, with his attorneys requesting more information about the reasons behind the dismissal of charges and the intended deportation.The judge ruled in April to not relocate him anywhere, preventing his being placed into the custody of the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which would lead to his deportation.“The ‘geopolitical and national security concerns’ appear to be an effort by the government to support a ‘deal’ with El Salvador to assist Bukele in suppressing the truth about a secret negotiation he had with MS-13 leaders in return for our government using El Salvador prisons,” Arevalo-Chavez’s attorneys said in a separate filing also unsealed on Thursday. That filing in particular mentioned the notorious Cecot prison built to house alleged gang members.The US attorney’s office for New York’s eastern federal district, where Arevalo-Chavez is being prosecuted, declined to comment Friday when asked by the Guardian. Arevalo-Chavez’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In mid-March, the US justice department quietly dismissed charges against another top Ranfla Nacional member and expelled him to El Salvador to be detained at Cecot, an acronym whose full name in Spanish means “the terrorism confinement center”. That other Ranfla leader, Cesar Humberto López-Larios, was facing similar charges in New York and also reportedly had insight about the deal Bukele previously struck with the gang.“This is collusion between two governments, the US and El Salvador, to cover up a gang pact by dropping charges on known gangsters in order to disappear them before they can testify,” said political science professor Michael Ahn Paarlberg at Virginia Commonwealth University. “It’s a criminal conspiracy between the Trump and Bukele administrations.“The irony is both of them claim to be tough on crime.”According to a justice department indictment, in 2019, the MS-13 leadership forged a pact with top Bukele administration officials. El Faro, a Salvadoran news organization, first reported on secretive meetings during which Bukele officials would enter prisons in El Salvador to negotiate directly with the Ranfla leaders.As part of the deal, MS-13 would receive certain money- and land-related concessions while agreeing to reduce the amount of violence they inflicted in El Salvador. Additionally, some top MS-13 leaders were released from prison – and the gang promised to leverage its networks to support Bukele’s political party in the 2021 legislative elections, according to prosecutors.The pact purportedly collapsed in 2022, leading Bukele to engage in a massive offensive against gangs in the country. Critics say that so-called state of exception crackdown led to a trampling of due process and human rights in the Central American nation – while also allowing Bukele to further consolidate power there.For years, Bukele has attempted to suppress any evidence of his ties to MS-13 by either attempting to recapture Ranfla leaders or by ignoring US extradition requests.US federal law enforcement agencies have long pursued MS-13’s criminal networks. In 2020 and in 2022, two separate federal indictments in New York charging 27 leaders of the gang were handed up and unsealed.In 2021, the US treasury department sanctioned two top Bukele officials for their alleged “corruption”, saying they engaged in “covert negotiations between government officials and the criminal organization” in order to secure the secret pact with MS-13. The treasury department also alleged that Bukele’s administration in 2020 provided financial incentives to MS-13 to reduce gang violence in exchange for “political support”.Arevalo-Chavez, one of the co-defendants in the 2022 indictment, had “participated in negotiations with the government of El Salvador on behalf of MS-13”, said the justice department, then controlled by Joe Biden’s presidential administration. Arevalo-Chavez left El Salvador and went to Mexico, where he helped run the gang’s operations there.The Mexican government arrested Arevalo-Chavez in February 2023 and quickly transferred him to the US, where the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) took custody. He is in custody in a federal detention facility while his case proceeds.Relations between El Salvador and the US have improved since Trump took office. In 2021, tensions between Biden officials and the Bukele government flared when, despite an international arrest warrant and extradition request, Salvadoran officials quietly released Ranfla Nacional leader Elmer Canales-Rivera from prison. US prosecutors alleged in a 2023 letter that he was personally escorted out of prison by a high-level Bukele official, given a firearm and driven to the Guatemalan border for his escape.The Bukele administration then attempted to recapture Canales-Rivera. According to reporting from El Faro, Bukele’s government discussed a plan to pay a Mexican cartel to find Canales-Rivera and return him to El Salvador. The Mexican government found him first, arrested him, and expelled him to the US in November 2023.Eight Ranfla Nacional leaders remained in US custody after López-Larios one was expelled in March. Two of them pleaded guilty earlier this year. More

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      Fear on campus: Harvard’s international students in ‘mass panic’ over Trump move

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      Harvard’s foreign students described an atmosphere of “fear on campus” following an attempt by the Trump administration to ban international scholars at the oldest university in the US.On lush, grassy quads filled with tents and chairs ready for end-of-year graduation celebrations, international students said there was “mass panic” after Thursday’s shock announcement by the Department of Homeland Security.The move triggered cancelled flights home for the summer, scrambles for housing to stay in the US over the break, and even swift attempts to transfer schools.On Friday, Harvard sued for a “blatant violation” of the US constitution and Allison Burroughs, a federal judge of the district of Massachusetts, temporarily blocked the White House from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students, who comprise an estimated 27% of the student body, or about 6,700 students.Genia Lukin, a third-year PhD candidate from Israel in Harvard’s psychology department, found out during a lab meeting. She said: “It was definitely a moment of: ‘Oh wow, what?’ Obviously, a lot of people are extremely anxious and extremely bewildered and this weird combination of this situation that just exploded out of the blue for most of the international students.”The 41-year-old added that she was in “wait-and-see mode” following the injunction and had cancelled travel abroad with her husband for the foreseeable future. Said Lukin: “The uncertainty is driving people crazy right now. What’s going to happen? Can we complete our degrees remotely? I worked very hard to get into my program so losing the PhD in the middle where I’m a good way through would be pretty devastating.”But, fearful of repercussions following a nationwide crackdown on academics and student protesters, including the arrest and detention of local Tufts University undergraduate, Rümeysa Öztürk, in nearby Somerville, in March, many other students and staff spoke on condition of anonymity.One 24-year-old Ukrainian freshman, who is a Harvard undergraduate during term time and returns to a war-torn country during holidays, said that she had delayed her scheduled flights next week back to her parents who are displaced in western Ukraine, unsure if she can get back into the US.“I feel really shocked,” she said. “If I leave, I’m not sure I’ll get back in. I’m lucky, I have housing the whole summer, so if I need to stay I can. Not all my friends have that. Some people are talking about transferring to different schools, but the transfer window is basically shut now.”She added: “Getting into Harvard is a big deal, it’s transformative, but this is outside our control. It goes against logic, but things go against logic in America right now.”A Chinese visiting scholar from Peking University in Beijing, here for an 18-month research trip for her PhD, called the legal battle “really, really scary” and described “mass panic” among her international friends when the attempted ban was announced on Thursday.The 28-year-old woman said: “We stayed up all night talking about our options, our plan Bs. I was going to go to the UK this summer because my professor has a position in Manchester. I’m a bit worried I won’t be able to get back in. I have to go back to Beijing to finish my PhD, but a lot of students here had long-term plans to stay in America. Harvard is like a special light in the world. If something happens to Harvard it makes me frightened.”A Haitian master’s student, who recently graduated, said a town hall organised by the university to talk to students about their fears had a waiting list of 100 people within minutes, and a campus-wide text chat “blew up with hundreds of messages in an hour”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut she added that the strong statement by Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, and the block by the federal judge made her “hopeful”. She added: “They’ve got our back. I have to trust that they want what is best for all of us.”A member of administrative staff, who lives on campus with international students and works to support them, added: “It’s horrific and almost certainly unlawful. There is a feeling of fear on campus. Normally, you just face typical, internal student problems, but when it is the outside world coming in it is hard to know how to help them.”She added that there was a “misunderstanding that all international students are wealthy” and can afford to have cancelled or disrupted studies. “I would say 50% of them need significant financial aid, and Harvard has a really robust system. They have already been so disrupted because of Covid. Maybe some students can transfer, but maybe they can’t afford to go. And they have lost this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Poof, gone.”Garber said in a letter to the Harvard community: “We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action. It imperils futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities across the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”The Guardian has contacted Harvard for comment. More